David Wood joined Captek Softgel International in Cerritos, CA, as CEO in March 2011. With more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry, including soft gel contract manufacturing at the executive level at Cardinal Health/R.P. Scherer, Mr. Wood is adept at building high performing executive teams and leading international manufacturing and service organizations with full P&L responsibility. He is known as a strategic visionary with a clear sense of purpose and urgency during both challenging periods and rapid growth. Skilled at establishing operational excellence within diverse environments, his experience includes creating specific growth strategies and planning and executing multi-faceted global business development campaigns designed to improve share and revenues. Mr. Wood was at Cardinal Health, (now Catalent Pharma Solutions) for six years, most recently serving as vice president and general manager of the pharmaceutical soft gel unit. His global P&L responsibilities for the business unit generated $400 million in annual revenue. At Catalent, he managed four manufacturing sites and R&D centers in New Jersey, Florida, France and Germany, and directed a staff of more than 1800 people, including manufacturing and scientific personnel. Mr. Wood holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Western Ontario and attended the Kellogg School of Management, Marketing Excellence Program/Strategic Negotiating Program at Northwestern University.
 
Health E-Insights: What are the top two metrics to which your company pays the closest attention?  
 
Mr. Wood: The two metrics that I watch the closest are quality or defect rates and secondly, on-time delivery.
 
Health E-Insights: Did the DHEP issue hogtie your company?  
 
Mr. Wood: It was more of a distraction than hogtieing us. We did a lot of work to demonstrate that we did not have a contamination problem and we were pleased to be able to prove that.
 
Health E-Insights: What separates you from your competition?
 
Mr. Wood: Captek’s focus is on quality as well as R&D. We pride ourselves in our ability to formulate with difficult raw materials to meet our customer’s requests to differentiate their products from their competitors. The company’s long history with Asian customers is also a key point of differentiation and strong growth engine for the company.
 
Health E-Insights: What is the most popular soft gel color and shape?
 
Mr. Wood: Natural colors are still the most popular because of the industry we support. The most popular size of capsules tends to be 20 oblong.
 
Health E-Insights: What are your proudest accomplishments in the past five years?
 
Mr. Wood: Besides seeing my daughters grow into great teenagers who excel at school and actively play a variety of sports, I am incredibly proud of working with the Captek team to grow our business beyond what many thought could be possible over the past year. It’s been a lot of hard work. Our team has risen to the challenge while maintaining a sense of humor. They make me want to work harder. Before Captek, I was lucky enough to run several different businesses at Cardinal Health which became Catalent. Each business had its own unique challenges, but the common threads were high quality and a dedicated workforce.  
 
Health E-Insights: How do you continue to find inspiration in your work?  
 
Mr. Wood: I love the ever-changing environment that the role brings. As a former salesperson myself, I like the customer contact and being in a position to occasionally move mountains for a customer to get something done in a hurry and help them out of a bind. Customers are what keep us in business and we need to anticipate their needs to remain relevant. The fast development cycle and pace of this industry is invigorating and allows us to make an impact much faster than might be possible in other industries.
 
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